3DS Exam by Snake

Posted 3 Oct 2016

This is the first in a series of Nintendo 64 homebrew posts. That said, let’s get into talking a bit about this tech demo by Snake. First off, I have no idea what this is called (officially). The file name is 3DSEXAM, but I’ve seen it listed as 3Dsesam or even 3DS Exam. Similarly, the name of the creator is called Snake, not Skake as seen in some places. The graphics were also contributed by McBain and Bootsy.

3DS Exam Consists of a few things:

A model of a man stuck in a walking position

Three lines of text at the top of the screen showing the degrees of rotation of the model

A text marquee along the bottom of the screen

The model can be switched for three cubes with the A/B buttons:

Flat pattern

Top / bottom / left / right / front / back labels

Simpsons characters Rainer Wolfcastle and Snake Jailbird

Bar on that top that increases and decreases. I don’t know what this means. Might be the framerate.

3DS Exam Video

Transcript

This is a transcript of the text on the marquee.

Blackback brings ya Snake’s crappy 3ds ->n64 converter demo… Coded by Snake… 3D Models by Bootsy, Snake and McBain… these models came straight from 3dsmax… lookout for a release maybe… (if we can be bothered)… oh yeah, use the buttons for some action… and remember, this is TOTALLY UN-optimized, its just a tester, my patch generator isnt finished yet… that’s all for now, 12/4/98

The marquee at the bottom of the screen gives us some insight into the process of making hombrew games. Nothing too specific, but it’s still helpful:

The model was made in 3DS Max, a 3D modelling software. This software has been in use since 1990 and Autodesk is still releasing new versions to this day. It might be worth looking into whether these new versions can be used to make models for use in the N64.

The model was then converted to a format compatible with the Nintendo 64 called “3ds ->n64 converter demo”, so far undiscovered.

The date of the file is 12/4/98, which is using dd/mm/yy notation. We can tell because in the line addressed to Kingpin, he’s wished a Happy Easter.

There seems to be a bit of a mismatch regarding file types. The file is labelled as a V64 (a file that comes from the Doctor V64), but the text is talking about using a (Mr. Backup) Z64. More on those in the N64 Development Hardware page.

Some of the people who have been tagged are known authors of N64 homebrew demos.

McBain is one of the people mentioned as the author of this demo, and also happens to be one of the Simpsons characters that appears on the texture of the rotating cube.

Download

You can download the ROM file here by using the password “3dsexambysnake”.

3DS Exam gallery

Homebrew demo: 3DS Exam by Snake (3DSEXAM)

3DS Exam is a N64 hombrew demo from 1998 by Snake that includes a static model that can be rotated in the three dimensions and swapped for a box.